THINK Everton and you think David Moyes and Wayne Rooney. In that order.

THINK Everton and you think David Moyes and Wayne Rooney. In that order.

Together they represent a bright future for a once-great team that has fallen from the high places it once commanded.

They are an inseparable unit because Moyes has demanded it be so. Sell the kid and I go too. You can't be much clearer than that even when you're dealing with an Everton boardroom that likes the sound of the word muddle.

Moyes' vision is of the young England icon going on to be a true Everton great, with the goals to match his obvious thirst to be the very best.

Sunday's dispatching of Birmingham City showed the value of the Croxteth crackerjack to the manager's masterplan.

At his best, he is simply unstoppable even in a side that has too much about it that is unconvincing.

He lifts his team-mates, he lifts the crowd, he lifts expectations to heights that may be difficult to fulfil given the present financial straitjacket which Moyes cannot free himself from.

But Moyes the realist, Moyes the perfectionist, knows he needs a few more players of Rooney quality in order to bridge the chasm that exists between the haves and the have-nots.

Money promised earlier now seems to have disappeared. So Moyes, like Howard Kendall and Walter Smith before him, finds himself on his own trying to haul the odd loan-signing in through a crack in the transfer window.

That's not the way to build a great team, but then again Moyes' signings have generally been important ones despite the restrictions placed on him.

He remains positive, which is probably his greatest asset. Even in defeat he usually finds positives - although his public pronouncements may not always match his private feelings.

Seventh place last season gave him and his adoring supporters hope of new horizons. But a board of directors which includes one of Britain's richest men decreed that his shopping should be confined to Poundstretcher.

That's a major kick in the teeth for one of the brightest and best.

NO ONE emerged with any credit from the Rio Ferdinand fiasco.

The FA took much too long to arrange the hearing and then put fearful pressure on judges who represent Soho Square in the sticks.

Manchester United cried kangaroo court before producing evidence that wouldn't have cleared the saintly Trevor Brooking.

Rio Ferdinand, according to leaks from within the tribunal, was an unconvincing witness, while his chauffeur on the day of the missed drugs test drove a hole through one of the defence's key call times.

All in all, a poor show, and, to cap it all, a sentence that seemed unnecessarily harsh.

I hold no brief for Ferdinand. He behaved like an idiot. You don't forget a drugs test unless you've been lobotomised in the interval between reminders. So he was clearly guilty and ought to have pleaded so - saving PFA chief Gordon Taylor from sounding so pig-headed.

But eight months? I don't think so, despite the constant refrain about athletes routinely facing a two-year ban for the same offence.

I think three months would have been punishment enough, sending a clear message to all players that short-term memory loss is the weakest excuse you can dream up.

Eight months is what too many drunk drivers get for killing a child.

Rio Ferdinand may be a fool, but who has he harmed except himself?

STEVE BRUCE'S grousing about the legitimacy of Everton's winner might have sounded better had Birmingham tried to win the match at Goodison instead of sitting on it.

Not once did they make a serious effort to wrest control from an Everton side that struggled to put anything half-decent together.

As ever, too many home players were seduced by the sight of Duncan Ferguson towering over his markers, so the easy option was to get rid and pump the ball long.

Thankfully, the youngest player on the pitch changed all that to leave Bruce with no option but to cry foul after a game Birmingham were not good enough to win.

MANY Goodison fans will have read details in match programmes and circulars about the magnificent work done by The Everton Former Players Foundation.

Last year this registrered charity - the only one of its kind in the country - received £104,000 in donations and spent £103,000 of it on helping ex-players meet medical and other urgent bills.

If you haven't already helped this most worthy of causes, then send your contributions to The Everton Former Players Foundation, PO Box 354, Liverpool L69 4QS. What a great way to start the new year.

DAVE JONES hasn't lost his scouse sense of humour. After his woeful Wolves beat a limp Leeds, he said: "We've given ourselves a fighting chance and that is all I can ask of my players."